Short Stories
Madam Sibyl’s First Client
In this short story, the young widow, Annie Fuller, is meeting her first client as the pretend clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl. If she can’t convince this man that she can make money for him with her financial advice, she doesn’t know how she will be able to hold onto her O’Farrell Street boarding house and her precious independence.
Madam Sibyl’s First Client is the prequel to Maids of Misfortune, the first book in Locke’s Victorian San Francisco Mystery series.
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Dandy Detects
In the fall of 1879, San Francisco swelters under a heat wave while Barbara Hewitt, a reserved school-teacher, uncovers a mystery with the help of her son’s dog, the Boston Terrier, Dandy.
This short story, which comes chronologically after Maids of Misfortune, is set in the 19th century, gas-lit world of Annie Fuller and her O’Farrell Street boarding house, which Locke writes about in her Victorian San Francisco Mystery series.
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The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage
This short story, set in 1879 San Francisco, features two elderly dressmakers, Miss Minnie and Miss Millie Moffet, who face a moral dilemma of no small dimensions. They turn for advice to Annie Fuller, a widowed boardinghouse owner who supplements her income as a clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl.
This story is set after Maids of Misfortune and before Uneasy Spirits and is an amusing glimpse into the lives of Annie Fuller’s two most eccentric boarders. For those unfamiliar with Locke’s mysteries and the late 19th century world they portray, this is just a taste of things to come.
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Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong
Annie Fuller, the young boarding house keeper and reluctant clairvoyant, met the kind, older Chinese servant, Mr. Wong, in the midst of her investigations into a mysterious death in Maids of Misfortune, the first book in Locke’s Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. In this short story, Annie Fuller turns to Mr. Wong for help in solving a puzzle that could have life or death consequences.
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